I spent a few days being sick, or working on other things, so I haven’t had a lot of sewing or quilting time over the last week. Then when I have had a little bit of time the sheer amount I could work on is almost overwhelming.
But today, some inspiration struck. I pulled out my bags of solids sorted by color and started sorting each colorway into scraps and 1 yard cuts or more.
This led to more inspiration from patterns I’ve wanted to do, but hadn’t yet matched up to fabrics I had. Of course, now my problem is the pile of “quilts I want to make” has gone up by at least two – wait, three more.
And this leads to my conundrum. The reason I plowed through my finishes last year was to get through the massive amount of quilt tops that were sitting and waiting, some as old as four years. There are still tops waiting but the pile is much smaller now. I think maybe 5 or 6 need basting, all have backings now too. There is one quilt half quilted, one top near complete and maybe two or three in progress.
So, the largest pile at the moment is of quilts to make – fabric pulled, pattern chosen, just waiting for me to cut into it. And today I *really* wanted to cut into some fabric and get sewing.
But that is where I stopped.
And I had to examine why and talk it over out loud to figure it out. I stopped for a few reason – I didn’t want to get interrupted. It was later in the day and I had maybe an hour at most. Why start if I cant fully enjoy it and have to stop just when I really got into it?
Really this shows how spoiled I am at have a day or a two A WEEK to do nothing but sew. Sheesh. And if I enjoy it, I should enjoy whatever timeI have, right? I’ve been known to make sure I sew for as little as ten minutes to make sure I enjoyed a bit of sewing that day.
Another reason was I didn’t want to get stuck with a pile of mostly done quilt tops. Or do a bunch of quilts with no recipient in mind.
But – I have managed to finish a whopping pile of quilts in the last year. While musing out loud I said to my husband, if I do twenty quilts in a year, does it matter if I do them one at a time, after another, or all at once? Probably not.
I mean, maybe if I start all of the ones pending that might be a bit much. I do want to know what it’s like to work on one thing only, but I suspect I’ll get bored. And looking back, I *did* manage to start and finish multiple quilts in a short time frame because I was motivated and inspired. Part of Past Me had started so many quilts at once because I was terrified I was going to forget my plans. But this time, i have things all sorted – fabrics bagged with patterns. There’s no mistaking what I intended, especially with sticky notes left on bundle for backing, borders and binding too.
And so what if some have no intended home yet? some I’m making just for the joy of making that particular pattern, or using that fabric. Some I know I want to sell afterwards. I clearly love the process of it more than the finished object itself.
So why am I making it hard and over thinking?
Of course, now it is the end of the day and I’ve run out of time to sew or even play with fabric. Alas. Maybe tomorrow.
